The 30-Minute Monthly Content Plan: Using AI to Map Out a Full Quarter of Blog Posts
Keeping a business blog active shouldn’t feel like a part-time job. Yet for many founders and marketers, that’s exactly what happens: you open your CMS, stare at a blank title field, and think, “What on earth do we publish this month?”
There’s a better way.
With the right process and the right AI tools, you can sit down once a month for about 30 minutes and walk away with a clear, strategic content plan for the next 90 days—including topics, keywords, formats, and publishing dates.
This post will walk you through that exact process step by step.
Why Planning a Quarter in 30 Minutes Is a Game-Changer
Before we get tactical, it helps to understand why this approach is so powerful.
1. You eliminate “blank page” stress
When you know exactly what’s publishing each week for the next three months, you’re no longer:
- Scrambling for ideas the night before a post is due
- Pushing blogging to “next week” over and over
- Letting your blog go silent for months at a time
Instead, you’re executing a plan—whether you’re writing yourself, delegating to a team, or using an AI platform like Blogg.
2. You align content with real business goals
Quarterly planning forces you to ask:
- What are we selling or promoting in the next 90 days?
- What questions do prospects have before they buy?
- Which search terms signal high intent for our offers?
When you plan around these questions, your blog becomes a sales asset, not just a publishing habit. If you want to go deeper on this, you might like our post on Measuring ROI from AI-Generated Content: Metrics Every Business Blog Should Track.
3. You can scale SEO impact systematically
Quarterly planning makes it easy to:
- Group posts into topic clusters around core offers
- Target dozens of related long-tail keywords
- Build internal links between posts over time
If you’re serious about capturing high-intent search traffic, you’ll want to pair this planning method with a strategy like the one in Long-Tail Keywords at Scale: Using AI Blogging Tools to Capture High-Intent Search Traffic.
4. AI does the heavy lifting
You don’t need to manually brainstorm 12–20 ideas every month. Modern AI tools can:
- Generate topic ideas from a few seed keywords
- Suggest SEO-friendly titles and outlines
- Map posts to buyer journey stages
- Draft and schedule posts automatically
Platforms like Blogg take this even further by handling ideation, writing, and scheduling for you—once your plan is in place.
The 30-Minute Monthly Planning Framework (Overview)
Here’s the high-level structure of the 30-minute session you’ll run once a month:
- Clarify quarterly priorities (5 minutes)
- Choose 2–3 core themes for the quarter (5 minutes)
- Use AI to generate topic ideas and keywords (10 minutes)
- Map posts to a simple content calendar (5 minutes)
- Hand off to AI for drafting and scheduling (5 minutes)
Let’s break each step down.
Step 1: Clarify Quarterly Priorities (5 Minutes)
Set a timer for five minutes. Open a blank doc or whiteboard and answer three questions:
-
What are our top 1–3 business goals for the next 90 days?
Examples:- Launching a new product or feature
- Driving more demo requests or trial signups
- Increasing average order value
-
What offers or campaigns support those goals?
Examples:- A new onboarding package
- A limited-time discount
- A webinar series
-
What objections or questions do prospects have before buying?
Examples:- “How does this compare to X competitor?”
- “Will this work for a small team?”
- “How long until I see results?”
You’re not writing content yet. You’re simply defining what success looks like for this quarter so your content can support it.
Pro tip: Keep this section at the top of your planning doc and update it each month. It becomes your “north star” for all blog decisions.
Step 2: Pick 2–3 Core Themes for the Quarter (5 Minutes)
Next, translate your priorities into content themes—broad topics that you’ll revisit from different angles.
Examples of themes:
- A CRM company: “pipeline visibility,” “sales forecasting,” “rep productivity”
- A fitness studio: “beginner strength training,” “nutrition for busy professionals,” “habit building”
- A bookkeeping firm: “tax readiness,” “cash flow clarity,” “DIY vs. done-for-you bookkeeping”
Aim for 2–3 themes for the quarter. Too many themes and your content becomes scattered; too few and you’ll struggle to find fresh angles.
Each theme should:
- Tie directly to a product, service, or offer
- Reflect language your customers actually use
- Have room for at least 4–6 posts each
Write your themes in a simple list:
- Theme 1: …
- Theme 2: …
- Theme 3 (optional): …
You now have the “buckets” your posts will fall into.
Step 3: Use AI to Generate Topic Ideas & Keywords (10 Minutes)
This is where AI earns its keep.
You’ll feed your themes and goals into an AI tool and let it propose:
- Post ideas
- Working titles
- Target keywords
- Buyer journey stages (awareness, consideration, decision)
What to prepare before you prompt AI
Gather this minimal set of inputs:
- Your 3–5 main products or services
- The 2–3 themes you just defined
- A short description of your ideal customer
- A note on your goals for the quarter (e.g., “more demo requests,” “more email subscribers”)
Example AI prompt you can reuse
You can paste something like this into an AI assistant or into a platform like Blogg:
“You are a content strategist for a B2B SaaS company that sells [describe product]. Our ideal customer is [describe ICP]. Our goals for the next 90 days are [goals]. Our content themes are [Theme 1], [Theme 2], [Theme 3].
Generate 15 blog post ideas for the next quarter. For each idea, include: a working title, a 1–2 sentence description, a suggested primary long-tail keyword, and the buyer journey stage (awareness, consideration, or decision). Focus on topics that can drive organic search traffic and support our goals.”
Within seconds, you’ll have a list of ideas that might have taken an hour to brainstorm manually.
How to refine the AI’s suggestions
Don’t accept the first list blindly. Spend a few minutes:
- Removing off-topic ideas that don’t align with your goals
- Combining similar ideas into stronger, more focused posts
- Asking for variations on promising topics (e.g., “Give me 5 variations of this idea focused on small teams.”)
You can also ask AI to:
- Suggest internal link opportunities between ideas
- Group posts into mini-series under each theme
- Identify FAQ-style posts that address objections directly
This is also a perfect moment to weave in an SEO strategy around long-tail queries. If you’re unsure how to approach that, our post on Long-Tail Keywords at Scale walks through examples and tools.
By the end of this step, aim to have 12–16 solid ideas—enough for 1–2 posts per week over the next quarter.
Step 4: Turn Ideas into a 90-Day Content Calendar (5 Minutes)
Now you’ll map those ideas to actual dates.
Open a spreadsheet, project management tool, or your blogging platform’s calendar. Create columns for:
- Publish date
- Post title (working title is fine)
- Theme
- Primary keyword
- Buyer journey stage
- Status (planned / drafting / scheduled / live)
Simple scheduling rules
To keep this quick and effective:
- Pick a consistent publishing cadence. For many small teams, that’s 1 post per week. If you’re using automation, you might go to 2–3 per week.
- Rotate themes. Don’t publish four posts in a row on the same theme unless it’s part of a deliberate series.
- Balance buyer journey stages. A simple rule of thumb for a quarter:
- ~50% awareness content
- ~30% consideration content
- ~20% decision content
Example for a 12-week quarter at 1 post per week:
- Weeks 1–4: 2 awareness, 1 consideration, 1 decision
- Weeks 5–8: 2 awareness, 1 consideration, 1 decision
- Weeks 9–12: 2 awareness, 1 consideration, 1 decision
Drag and drop your ideas into this structure. Don’t overthink it—this is a living plan. You can always swap posts around later.
Step 5: Hand Off to AI for Drafting & Scheduling (5 Minutes)
With your calendar in place, you’re ready to move from planning to execution.
If you’re using a platform like Blogg, this is where it shines: you can import your topics, set your preferences (tone, length, target audience), and let the system handle ideation, writing, and scheduling automatically.
If you’re working with a more manual setup, here’s a lightweight process:
-
Create AI-ready briefs for each post
For each row in your calendar, add 3–5 bullet points describing:- Who the post is for
- The main problem it solves
- The primary keyword
- Any product mentions or CTAs required
-
Generate first drafts with AI
Use your AI tool of choice to turn each brief into a draft. Ask for:- An SEO-friendly title
- A clear structure with H2/H3s
- Internal link suggestions
-
Edit for voice, accuracy, and differentiation
Human review is still crucial. Focus on:- Adding real examples, stories, or data from your business
- Correcting any factual errors
- Ensuring the post sounds like you, not like a generic template
-
Schedule posts in advance
Load finalized posts into your CMS and schedule them according to your calendar. Aim to stay at least 2–3 weeks ahead.
Once this system is running, your monthly 30-minute session becomes about adjustment, not reinvention.
Making the Most of Your 30 Minutes: Practical Tips
Here are a few ways to get even more value from your monthly planning ritual.
Reuse and remix high-performing posts
Look at your analytics from the last quarter:
- Which posts drove the most organic traffic?
- Which posts contributed to leads or revenue?
- Which topics got the most engagement (time on page, comments, shares)?
Use those insights to:
- Spin off follow-up posts on similar subtopics
- Create updated versions with new data or examples
- Turn multi-topic posts into focused deep dives
If you’re not sure which metrics to watch, our guide on Measuring ROI from AI-Generated Content lays out a simple dashboard you can build.
Build content “series” instead of one-off posts
Series make planning easier and keep readers engaged. Examples:
- “The Beginner’s Guide to [Topic]” – Parts 1–4
- “7 Common Mistakes in [Industry] and How to Fix Them” – one post per mistake
- “Customer Stories” – monthly case studies following the same format
Ask your AI tool: “Turn this topic into a 4-part series that progresses from beginner to advanced.” Then schedule each part across the quarter.
Align posts with campaigns and dates
Look at your broader marketing calendar:
- Upcoming product launches
- Seasonal promotions
- Webinars or events
Then:
- Schedule awareness posts 3–4 weeks before the campaign
- Publish comparison or objection-busting posts 1–2 weeks before
- Release case studies or success stories during or right after the campaign
Your blog becomes an engine that supports everything else you’re doing—not an isolated effort.
How Blogg Fits into This Workflow
The framework above works with almost any AI tool, but it’s especially effective when paired with a platform purpose-built for automated blogging.
Here’s how Blogg can plug into each step:
- Planning: Enter your themes, audience, and goals; Blogg can propose a calendar of topics for the quarter.
- Ideation & SEO: It can generate SEO-optimized titles and outlines tailored to your niche.
- Drafting: Blogg writes full posts in your preferred tone and length.
- Scheduling: It automatically publishes posts to your site on the schedule you set, keeping your blog active without constant oversight.
You still define the strategy and review content for accuracy and voice—but the time-consuming parts of ideation, writing, and posting are handled for you.
Quick Recap
If you’ve ever felt like you’re “winging it” with your blog, a 30-minute monthly planning habit can change everything.
Here’s the condensed version of the process:
- Clarify quarterly priorities. Know what business outcomes your blog should support.
- Choose 2–3 core themes. Tie them directly to your products and customer problems.
- Use AI to generate ideas. Get 12–16 topic ideas with titles, keywords, and buyer journey stages.
- Map ideas to a 90-day calendar. Rotate themes and balance awareness, consideration, and decision content.
- Hand off to AI for drafting and scheduling. Use tools like Blogg to automate the heavy lifting while you focus on strategy and review.
Do this once a month and you’ll always know what’s publishing next—and why.
Your Next 30 Minutes
You don’t need to overhaul your entire content operation to benefit from this. You just need to run one 30-minute session.
Here’s a simple way to start this week:
- Block 30 minutes on your calendar.
- Open a doc and answer the three questions from Step 1.
- Define 2–3 themes.
- Use your favorite AI tool—or try Blogg—to generate at least 12 ideas.
- Drop those ideas into a basic calendar with dates.
By the time that half hour is up, you’ll have something most businesses never do: a clear, AI-powered content roadmap for the next quarter.
Your blog doesn’t have to be a source of stress. With a bit of structure and the right tools, it can quietly and consistently bring in traffic, leads, and customers—while you stay focused on running your business.
